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Luke Masters

Here’s the penultimate new character appearing in Outcast last week, and the last one among the three that share the same story for a huge part. In All Alone Now, we meet Detective Luke Masters, portrayed by JR Bourne, a man who, despite being mostly an atheist, calls Reverend Andersonfor help when he’s unable to understand what has happened to his best friend and partner, Blake Morrow, after he brutally killed his wife for no reason and out of nothing, and has transformed into a completely different person. After the failed exorcism, Luke is seen facing Blake alone in the prison’s hospital, and after the umpteenth provocation he goes close to killing him…but he luckily manages to restrain himself at the last moment. In the comics, his role is expanded just a little bit, as you can expect (the series doesn’t differ much from the comics right now): let’s see together.

Even with Luke Masters, most of his early life is pretty much unknown. He was born somewhere in West Virginia, and as an adult he entered the State Police, becoming a detective. He had also met a girl, Theresa: the two fell in love, and eventually got married. Luke and Terry were deeply in love, and she accepted to share every aspect of his life; despite this, Luke preferred to keep the horrors he saw every day on his job away from her, and obviously the only ones he could talk about this kind of things with were his colleagues. In particular, Luke befriended his partner, Blake Morrow, who became like a brother for him: Luke let him inside his life, and introduced him to his wife as well. Their relationship was based on a solid friendship, and the two of them became quite inseparable (much to his relief, Terry liked Blake as well, thus avoiding many potential problems). Luke worked with Blake for seven years, always watching his back, and always sure that he did the same for him as well…until a night like the others Blake arrived to his house, sick. Apparently, his partner had a bad fever, so Luke left him in Terry’s care, while he went out to buy some medicine. He didn’t stay out for long, but when he came back his life was changed forever: he found Blake, grimming sadistically, in the middle of a puddle of blood, near the battered corpse that once was Terry. Shocked, distraught, betrayed and incredulous, Luke Masters arrested his best friend on the spot. Blake was sent to West Virginia State Prison, condemned to serve a life imprisonment, while Luke was left without answers, unable to understand why his friend had done what he had done, and if it was possible to “cure” him and to make him come back the man he used to be.

After some time spent trying to speak to the thing that used to be Blake, Luke stopped visiting him, but he didn’t stop trying to help him. He put all his resources and time at the service of his friend, and this eventually costed him his job; placed on administrative leave, he still kept investigating similar cases to his friend’s one, until he found Joshua Austin, a boy who had abruptly changed his nature and behavior, and who was returned to his former self by Kyle Barnes, a man living in the town of Rome. Luke tracked Kyle down, and presented himself to his door, asking for help. He told Barnes what had happened with Blake, and Kyle in turn brought him to Reverend Anderson, the local priest: both Anderson and Kyle agreed to help him, as long as Luke was able to let them inside the prison…not too difficult, considering Masters’ many friends there. Once the three men finally faced Blake Morrow, the convict resumed mocking his old partner, forcing him to react with anger and to physically attack him, until Reverend Anderson suggested him to leave the room. From the nearby observation room, Luke could see what the other two were doing without disturbing them…but when the exorcism Kyle and Anderson were performing became challenging, Masters became afraid that Blake wouldn’t have survived it, and rushed in to stop the two exorcists. The demon within Blake laughed it off, and Kyle Barnes realised how much more powerful it was compared to the ones he and Anderson had met before. The exorcists left, telling Luke they couldn’t do anything for his friend, not yet at least; the detective thanked them, realising they were the first people able to do something for Blake, and who understood what was happening to him. He told them that he would have been at their disposal for whatever they needed…and the offer proved to be pretty useful, as he was contacted not too much time later by Reverend Anderson, who was trying to track down a runaway girl in Charleston, another potential possessed one…

Luke Masters is a smart man and a brilliant detective, but also a loving husband and an extremely loyal friend. His affection and loyalty for Blake Morrow goes to the point that he insists on trying to help him even when his friend brutally murders the other most important person in his life, going as far as ruining his own life even more just to “save” his partner. Definitely the kind of friend you’d want to have you covered in a bad situation…like the apocalyptic one that is preparing in West Virginia.

[…] away thanks to her peculiar gifts. Then, eventually, she was found once again, this time by Luke Masters, a policeman who was helping Reverend Anderson. Anderson, in fact, had just found out that his […]